The Best Books of 2018

The best of what we (somehow!) found time to read this year.

Tayari Jones is a master of hooking readers from premise to execution to depth. Her latest novel details the excruciating toll that America’s racist plague of mass incarceration takes on individual lives; specifically, she examines how an imprisonment on false charges affects a loving match which begins in hope. But don’t let the term “excruciating” deter you, as none other but Oprah wrote, before selecting the book for her club: “After the first few chapters, as I got to know Roy and Celestial and Andre, I forgot they were fictional characters. I found myself in that zone readers yearn for: I wanted to cancel all my plans and curl up with my new friends.”